Happy
by MissZatanna
Summary: Prompt #5: "He so desperately wants to just stop being a man and go back to being a kid. He wants to just curl up into a ball and cry until Alfred comes around to make it better. He wants his parents back. He wants Jason back. He wants to be happy."


**Rating**: K+  
**Characters**: Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth  
**Prompt**: "He so desperately wants to just stop being a man and go back to being a kid. He wants to just curl up into a ball and cry until Alfred comes around to make it better. He wants his parents back. He wants Jason back. He wants to be _happy_."

It's a Sunday when Dick realizes that he hasn't been home in days. He's tried to leave the new headquarters for the Team, but he can't bring himself to put the mission briefings away. He has a picture of him and Wally, Kaldur and Artemis on his desk. They're playing chicken in the water at the beach behind Mount Justice. Artemis is in the process of falling backwards into the water and Wally's head is halfway under already. Dick and Kaldur are smiling ear to ear. And they know that they won because Kaldur has power over water, but hey, it's not their fault that Wally and Artemis just_had_ to be on each other's team. A frown passes his lips as he remembers it. It was the same year that his best friends decided to leave the life behind.

And as he's sitting here with piles and piles of work for Team scattered across the surface, he finally realizes why they left. It's consuming. It's heartbreaking. _It's tiring_. He's tired of losing his teammates, his_ friends_. He's tired of putting everything on the line every day. He's tired.

Looking at the picture, he starts to laugh. He's not sure what he's laughing about because none of this is funny at all. But soon he's guffawing louder than he ever has before. And he doesn't even notice until after a few minutes that tears are streaming down his face faster than he can control. He wipes his eyes but they keep coming. That's what years of bottling your feelings will do to you. All at once they come out. Before he knows it, he's sobbing quietly into his pillow, curled up into a ball on the cot in the small room.

At first, he thinks it's just so pathetic for him to be crying. He's not Arsenal who lost his arm, or Zatanna who (supposedly) lost her best friend, or even Kaldur who lost Tula. Soon he starts to realize that there's one constant variable in all of those situations. The Life. They've lost them all to the Life.

He wants to leave it. He wants to leave it behind and be normal. He wants to have a family and kids and not be worried that his enemies are going to target them because he's a hero. He wants to be carefree and have fun like he used to. He so desperately wants to just stop being a man and go back to being a kid. He wants to just curl up into a ball and cry until Alfred comes around to make it better. He wants his parents back. He wants Jason back. He wants to be _happy_.

So he stops crying, gathers up his things, and zetas to Gotham. He knows where Bruce hides the spare key: under the flower pot. He grabs it and shoves it into the lock like he's done so many times. And once he's inside, he takes off his leather jacket and sets it on one of the chairs in the foyer. He'll pick it up later.

And he's not surprised that Alfred is walking into the room a few seconds later. The man doesn't look surprised or even perturbed that Dick is home at this late hour. It's like he was expecting it.

What he wasn't expecting were the salty tears that drip from Dick's eyes down his cheeks and onto the marble floor. Dick's body going limp until he's kneeling on the floor, his chest heaving up and down as he sobs. Alfred quickly runs over and wraps his arms around the shaking figure. And he rocks him back and forth slightly the way he used to.

Dick's sobs grow quieter but still as frequent. And they just stay there like that. Like they used to when Dick woke in the night screaming for his parents. After a few minutes of being rocked back and forth gently, Alfred says quietly, "You really should come home more often, Master Richard."

And Dick kind of laughs behind his cries and he nods slightly, the tears still rolling. He knows that he'll never leave the life. He knows that he'll never be _normal _because that's not who he is. That's not who he'll ever be. The Life is his _life_. And yes, it's tiring, it's demanding, it makes him wish Bruce had never took him in, but he knows that as long as Alfred is here to comfort him when he's crying, _he'll be okay._


End file.
